Scarlet, the Forgotten Prince
by Thegracefultwister
Summary: Dib has been entrusted to look after Scarlet, the illegitimate child of Princess Zaimi. Years later, Dib and the now fifteen year old Scarlet have lived a relatively normal life, until some Irken faces start making unwanted appearances.


Prologue: Attached

Dib made a promise to himself, a very crucial one: He promised he wouldn't get attached.

Sitting on the couch, he propped an elbow on his knee, rested his cheek against his knuckle, watching the smeet run circles around the coffee table. The smeet bubbled into fits of laughter, arms spread out like wings. Dib amused himself by counting the revolutions the smeet made but long since lost track when he began to feel dizzy. The laughter rang high and loud and occasionally he would place a hand over his ear to muffle the sound when it became too much. Sighing, Dib sat back, folded his hands over his stomach, and closed his eyes.

What was he doing? He was fifteen. He should be out hanging with friend, doing paranormal investigations, not stuck at home babysitting an alien toddler. It shouldn't even be his job. The smeet should be with its parents, not in his house.

Abruptly, Dib was pulled from his thoughts when he heard a loud _thunk_. His eyes shot open, in search of the smeet, and witnessed the end of its head bouncing off a cabinet door. It fell back onto its bottom, dazed. Dib rushed to the smeet just as it began to wail.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said softly. Gently, he rubbed a hand over the spot where the smeet's head had been struck. "You're okay, Scarlet. It's alright."

Slowly but surely, the smeet quieted down. It looked up at Dib, smiled and then raced off again. Dib rose to his feet and followed, not letting the smeet out of his sight.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he frowned. Whenever he used the smeet's name, it always left a strange taste in his mouth. The familiarity it brought along with it made him feel uncomfortable.

This wasn't right. He shouldn't be familiar with an alien. Aliens were the enemy.

Right?

But as he watched the smeet run, he found himself thinking of Zim.

_Zim._

Man, it'd been years—"Three," Gaz would remind him this year, just as last year she said "two"—since he last saw Zim. Dib wondered how he was doing. The last time was when Zim left for his home planet Irk with Princess Zaimi, Scarlet's mother. That also happened to be the same day she entrusted (_More like forced_, Dib thought) Dib to take care of Scarlet, until the day same came back for him.

Why couldn't she have taken her son with her?

The answer was obvious: Scarlet wasn't supposed to exist. It would result in the cheers or outrage from the Irken people. Dib leaned on the latter as Scarlet wasn't pure Irken but Zim and Princess Zaimi said it was the Control Brains who worried them more. Irkens, Dib learned, had been unable to breed for centuries, possibly millennia. An alternative method was found in the form of cloning, and the Irkens were produced as such since.

When Princess Zaimi came to Earth to check on Zim's invasion progress, however, everything changed. She had a one-night stand with a human and became pregnant as a result. (No amount of sex-education could explain to Dib how a cloned alien could have sexual intercourse, much less carry a child in her womb when she possessed only one organ, but it happened and that's all that mattered.) She was then ordered by Almighty Tallest Red and Purple—Red being her brother, which Dib also learned was possible through shared DNA—to remain on Earth until the smeet was born. They even sent a PAK.

The PAK turned out to be unnecessary, however, as Scarlet was born a healthy, breathing smeet. That wasn't the only thing to baffle everyone. Scarlet had also been born with five-fingered hands and five-toed feet, as well as human organs and a … yes, well. Anyway, Scarlet was born an Irken-human hybrid, the only one of his kind.

A few days after naming him and giving him to Dib, Princess Zaimi left with Zim for Irk. That was three years ago and Dib hadn't heard from them since. He did try contacting them but the connection never pulled through. He eventually gave up after a year, mostly thanks to Gaz's "concern" and rather forceful insistence.

Now here he was, raising a smeet and waiting for a call that would never come. At one point, in bitterness toward Zim and Princess Zaimi, Dib considered exposing Scarlet's true identity to the world, but images of scientists cutting into little Scarlet's torso stopped him cold. He couldn't do that. He would _never_ do that to a child, alien or not.

Being so lost in the past, Dib almost didn't feel the tugging on his leg. He looked down and Scarlet looked up, tiny hands balled in his jeans.

"Dib!" Scarlet cheered. "Dinner, time to eat dinner!"

Checking his watch, Dib saw it was indeed time for dinner. He reached down and rubbed Scarlet's head, ruffling his antennae. "Alright, buddy, let's go," he said, steering the smeet into the kitchen.

"Meat, meat!"

Dib shook his head. "No meat, Scar. Your tummy can't take meat." The day he found that out had been a rather interesting one.

"Green, green!"

Dib nodded. "That's right. You eat green because…"

"…Green is good!" Scarlet finished.

Dib couldn't help himself then. He laughed. Loud, hard, infectious. Scarlet joined in, still clutched to Dib's side.

While he prepared dinner, Dib thought back to that promise. He promised he wouldn't get attached to Scarlet because he had assumed the smeet would be gone, long before now.

Three long years later and Scarlet was more attached to Dib than Dib would like to admit. What was he going to do now? At this point, he was quite certain neither Zim nor Princess Zaimi were coming back.

If Scarlet had been forgotten by his mother, Dib would make certain Scarlet grew into the young man he was born to be, with all the love and care he needed.

He promised himself he wouldn't get attached, but he already was.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I think I found the beginning I've been looking for to this story, though I cannot foresee the ending yet. Please enjoy and review. I do not own Invader Zim. The characters of Scarlet and Princess Zaimi are my own creations.


End file.
